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When Hostgator and BlueHost along with a myriad of other hosting companies owned by Endurance International Group went down Twitter was abuzz with mad clients complaining. Many of which had no local copies of their site(s). Nor did they have a backup plan for them or if applied, their clients. It is understandable that web designers wanna save on their overhead and host their clients site as cheaply as possible. But in this and many other cases you get what you pay for. I have worked for over 15 years creating fully redundant datacenter and cloud infrastructure for numerous companies. In my vocabulary “downtime” is a four letter word.

With todays cloud environments you can have full redundancy and minimize the impact of an outage be it localized or geographic. There is always the possibility of having the dreaded downtime but it can be minimized inexpensively for mission critical things.

Small businesses can’t be hosted by the all-inclusive shared server account model that many of the largest (and cheapest) hosting companies provide. This is a remnant of circa 1995 business model for hosting. Where a shared account is used to host website, email, FTP, DNS, and the kitchen sink. It’s understandable that something like a website being down might not be the end of the world for some SMBs but having email down along with every other service they need can be detrimental. We all know putting all your eggs in one basket is never an optimal idea.

Let alone the security issues that come with shared hosting. If one site is compromised due to a simple cross site scripting or other issue the whole server will be taken over. Leaving your site and data as collateral damage to someone else’s mistakes.

There is a need for a revised method of providing SMBs and independent web designers to get cheap but reliable (including well architected) hosting.

In a previous post I was writing about weaning myself off of Google. Well let me tell you, it is not easy. Harder than I even imagined it would be. Actually it is a major pain in the ass!

For this experiment I opted for a Yandex email address as my new main personal email. It has an easy to use interface and the ability to sync other emails (such as my Gmail) with it. The interface is clean and pretty good. The URL has “neo2″ in the path when logged in so I am assuming it is based on OpenWebMail somehow. Which is fine with me.

I was reading a Wired article today titled, “Amid NSA Outrage, Big Tech Companies Plan to Track You Even More Aggressively” and commented that they too track the heck out of people with a whopping 30 trackers (4 social networks and 26 tracking companies!). Ironically the comment was not approved. It seems that the very news sites that are writing news on the NSA and Internet companies tracking us are doing the very same thing!?

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Well folks I am here to say I have one…

It’s my Google-ification!

Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with Google. More that I had the epiphany that I am up to my eyeballs in it.

The other night I started pondering what all I use and how (or if) it is connected to Google. Just have a look at your Google Dashboard and you might be surprised! Here is a short list of things I use that are all Google…

GMail

Android

Google Voice

YouTube

GTalk

Google+

AdSense

Google Docs/Drive

Picasa

Analytics

Search

With the above just being the key points! I am way deep in the sea of Google. So what is a guy to do???

Firstly the easiest thing for me to change behavior wise is not search using Google. I have changed my Chrome to use DuckDuckGo as default for search. A few other good alternatives are:

This last Sunday we made the one hour and 45 min trek to Big Bear Lake. In all my years of living in LA I had never quite made it there to see what all the fuss is about. The ski season was about to start and only a little snow had already fallin so there was no need for chains and the roads were very passable.

Stream Crossing

The drive there is certainly fun going from next to nothing to 7000+ feet in elevation up winding mountain roads. Once there we drove around the lake to see the houses then cut over to the Rim of the World Drive from North Shore Drive. This is where the real adventure begins. I do not recommend going there after the seasons snow fall start since most roads get washed out or damaged even for super high clearance vehicles to pass.

Note: Be sure to take with you provisions and an emergency kit in case you get stuck and have to spend the night. An emergency beacon is even better to have! Also be sure to get an Adventure Pass if you plan on making stops. As always advise family or friends on your travels and when to expect to hear back from you!

The Subaru XV Crosstrek did an excellent job of tackling the off-road driving. We did get stuck twice but that was due to the road being washed away to the point of needing much more clearance. Glad the Crosstrek has skid plates since I am sure they have some scars to prove the adventure. Luckily on the first instance of getting stuck some dirt bikers came by and helped us out. I have to say I am thoroughly impressed with how well it handles off road and the CVT does a great job of laying down the power on rough terrain. We will be sure to head back to Big Bear once more snow is in the forecast. Plus there are many more secluded hiking trials to be seen once the weather warms again in Spring.